“So that’s why you left so early? Just like that?”
Gill cut her eyes at Serena, but she knew her friend had the right of it. “I needed my beauty sleep.”
“First off, when have you ever cared about how beautiful you are? And second, Nat’s the bride here and she was partying until two in the morning.”
“She’s also the hungover one right next to you. Can you lower your damn voice?”
Serena gave Nat a firm pat on the shoulder. “Sorry, sunshine. Happy birthday! Happy wedding day!”
“Go away.”
“Oh, look, your mom’s here,” Rachel said, loudly enough to startle the infant in her arms.
“Crap.” Natalie sat up and groped for her cup of coffee. “Who brought the eye drops?”
The rest of them burst into laughter, and Nat turned to look at the salon’s empty-of-Elaine parking lot. “You scheming, lying traitor. Give me that baby right now.”
First Rachel gave Nat a kiss, then draped a burp cloth over her shoulder. “Give her back before you get sprayed with hair fixer or foundation or whatever.”
Natalie shook her head. “Listen to your ridiculous mama, little Cass. Thinks I’m going to poison your sweet sweet face before you can even focus those big eyes on me.”
Cassandra didn’t stir. Six weeks old and already so used to staying chill no matter how many siblings or aunts or friends tried to hog time with her. Gillian sidled up to be available for her turn. Unfortunately that gave Natalie a chance to study her for whatever truth she might be hiding when she asked, “How much are you stuck in your feelings for Vic, anyway?”
“Ditto,” said Serena and Rachel together.
She fixed her glare on the bride. “I never said I was stuck in my feelings for him.”
“You also never said you were a smart-ass brunette, but some things are obvious.”
“Hey. Not in front of my godbaby.”
“Sorry, little Cass. Aunt Gillian’s right that no one should be labeled based on their appearance. Though she missed the nuance that I didn’t put a judgment value on her dark hair, just noted she has it.”
“Don’t try to deconstruct your verbal nuances at me, even if it is your wedding day. You know I’ll take you down.”
“And you know I’ll get right back up and ask you about Vic again.”
Neither of their other friends was poised to intervene. Serena was tapping at her phone, and Rachel was taking photos of Nat holding the baby. It was the pitfall of paired-off besties: she was the only one left with a love life they could gossip over.
Not that she had a love life, per se.
“Shouldn’t we be talking about you instead? On Serena’s wedding day we talked about her for something like seven straight hours.”
“Hey.”
“Deny it all you want.”
“I didn’t deny it,” Serena said, scooping up Cassandra even though it was obvious it was Gillian’s turn. “I rejected the notion you should use it to deflect from telling us about Vic. Dillon and Jorge and he were talking while they packed up last night, and he says Vic was morose.”
Gill waited for more details. None emerged.
Nat made a pouting face that was anything but bridal. “Aw, poor guy. And he’s usually so cheerful all the time. So good at putting people at ease and getting them to give him their real emotions and listening to what they need.”
“I know, right? Dillon and Jorge were texting about it this morning. Jorge says it isn’t like him at all to be so withdrawn on the job.”
One more pointed comment and Gillian would take the baby from Serena, no matter if her time was up or not.
“Anyway, in case that wasn’t mentioned, this is my wedding day.” Natalie stroked her newly-straightened hair and turned to stare her down. “And any minute now, my mom and Theo’s mom are going to show up here and stress me out trying to outdo each other fussing over me. So it’s your job to distract me from pre-stressing about being stressed.”
Serena stood swaying with the baby. “Rach and Cass and me are going for our pedicures now. Get with the being a good friend and confessing to how you’ve been thinking about Victor ever since you first rolled that five for a bald man when we made our fortune teller.”
Rachel stirred from the half-doze she’d fallen into while waiting for her turn in the mani-pedi massage chair. “Remind me to drink an iced coffee the minute she finishes her next feed.”
“I will,” they all three said.
“Also, remind me who it was that suggested we add ‘bald’ to the list of hair options.”
“No one remembers that,” Gillian protested. And it was true that she didn’t know who had offered bald up as an option for the prediction game. Even if it was also true that her first thought, once the dice claimed her destined guy was bald, was of Victor Anthony.
Professional, that was him. Sending Jorge to do the bridal suite photos just to avoid one of the bridesmaids. Fussing over the light meter instead of meeting anyone’s direct gaze. Having the wedding coordinator shuffle in and out the various groups alone when his normal routine was to be involved with the task.
He slid into the niche behind the DJ where they’d stashed his stuff. A quick scroll through the latest pics reassured him he wasn’t cheating Evan or Natalie out of any key memories. He tagged a few shots to send the couple as a teaser at the end of the night. Grabbed a fresh battery pack. Reminded himself that Gillian knew the score now so his sidling up to her to tell her she filled his mind and he wanted her and he admired and respected and was awed by her—all that was unnecessary. Overkill.
So. He was professional. Did his damn job.
She gossiped with her friends. She snuck tiny bubble-wand bottles into the hands of all the kids. She conspired with the rest of the wedding party to surprise the bride and groom with a completely over the top birthday cake covered in confetti sprinkles and fluffy frosting balloons and firecracker-looking candles that kept relighting. It was their joint birthday, so it was a truly threatening number of flames. Gillian was ready, though, holding back Natalie’s hair and clearing the fancy napkins and so forth out of the way. In the end, the various nieces and nephews came forward to help with the candles and were sent off to share the cake once Natalie and Evan shared a token amount.
It was goofy and loving and just the right touch of levity to balance out the otherwise all-elegant reception. It highlighted why the bride and groom chose their joint birthday to also be their wedding day—their connection was deeper than the beautiful facade of their lives. They trusted so much in their love that not only were they getting married, they were doing so on the day that would now forever be about the two of them, instead of either of them as individuals.
It was everything he wanted with Gillian.
And she had yet to look his way.
He knew, because professional or not, he’d spent much of the wedding with her in his lens. He had shots of her smiling, of her crying, of her looking tenderly at her friends. But nothing of her looking at him. At his camera, sure, for all the posed shots. And he knew all too well the difference. He’d been avoiding people’s eyes via the viewfinder for well over a decade. So he was on to Gillian’s tricks.
Dillon strode to him. “Come on.”
“What?”
“Put the camera down, we need you.”
“For what?”
Dillon smirked. He caught sight of Jorge’s signal that he was on it. Whatever it was.
“Okay, you’ve conspired, and that’s fine. But she doesn’t want to mess with me.”
“She’s here without a date, and that was never her plan. Plus, Serena told me to do this. So, come on.”
The DJ scrunched her nose encouragingly at him when he cased his camera and headed past her. As soon as he and Dillon were near the head table, she announced that the newlyweds’ friends and family had another surprise for them. Dillon parked him in the gathering circle between Gillian and Rachel, then stood to Gill’s other side like he was preventing an escape.
“What are you doing?”
He looked at her. “I have no idea. I wasn’t in on this plan.”
“Relax. It’s the Hora. You’ll catch on fast,” Dillon told him.
“I know the Hora. And how is it a surprise? It’s on my shot list.”
One of Evan’s brothers grinned from where he was waiting to hoist a leg of the groom’s chair. “Just you wait. You’ll see.”
The DJ turned the mic over to Natalie’s mom’s boyfriend, who was a cantor at her synagogue. He invited everyone to join the outer circle, the one behind where Vic stood with all the wedding party and immediate family.
Through it all, he was beyond aware of Gillian right next to him. Acting like she wasn’t searing his side. Like the hem of her purple dress wasn’t flirting with his trousers. Like his hand wasn’t itching to take hers, to experience the way their fingers and wrists flexed to lead each other through the circle dance.
And then they were underway, and, even better, everyone in the inner circle around bride and groom held onto each other’s shoulders. He was that much closer to Gillian. Their hips twisted in unison, brushing with the beat as they moved. Dillon and Theo and a few other guys moved in to take over chair duty, but they had enough volunteers without him. He pulled Gill closer.
She tried glaring up at him, but everyone in the room was singing “Hava Nagila” or humming or laughing and she couldn’t hold on to her irked expression.
Evan’s dad took the mic as the music shifted. “Stay where you are, everyone. Not you, Oğlum. You and your bride need feet on the ground. We’re going from the Hora to Halay, which is a Turkish folk dance, also for weddings. Keep your circles, and watch my children and their spouses to lead you.”
Natalie looked all kinds of confused, but Evan whispered to her. They positioned themselves at the end of the line of his siblings, and he whipped out his silk handkerchief to wave in his far hand.
Vic glanced at Jorge, who gave him a reassuring nod. He stuck next to Gill. Finally held her hand, since the dance demanded it. Well, demanded they link pinkies, but he needed her touch, so he interlaced their fingers while they watched the demonstration. “Did you learn this already?”
She creased her brow for a sec. “I don’t know that ‘learn’ is the right word. But we did what we could with YouTube and FaceTime.”
Bless each frenetic step of the Hora for pounding out his nervous energy and, maybe, a touch of her hesitation about him. He settled in to tease. “Can’t wait to see what you’ve got.”
She flicked their joined hands enough to bap against his thigh. “Pay attention or you’ll make me look bad.”
“You couldn’t ever look bad to me.”
Shit. Too far. Her sudden stillness, the tension in her fingers. He pried his dry tongue from the roof of his mouth, searching for a path back to ease between them. But the music was rolling, and the Lee family was in motion, showing off their footwork. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t beyond him. Didn’t stop him focusing in like this wedding’s invoice would go unpaid if he didn’t pull it off.
Gillian’s purple-toed foot tapped his. “Don’t forget the extra kick.”
“Right. Got it.”
“No. Left.” The joke in her voice washed triumph through him like he’d finally bested Anton at Mario Kart.
He got into the rhythm, echoing the bounce of the others as they sped up. Before long, the Lees began a few slick moves that his part of the circle had no hope of emulating, so they backed up to join the group clapping from the outskirts. Jorge worked toward him, handing over his Cannon EOS then gesturing he would get up the stairs for more overhead shots.
He leaned to Gillian. Kissed her cheek. “They’re going to get all fancy here, I can tell, so I’m going to do my thing.”
She nodded. Didn’t reply, but did leave her hand on his chest a moment longer than necessary.
He took a risk. “Save me a dance later?”
That got her facing him. She bit her peach-rose lip, which kicked him in the gut, but her face smoothed into a smile. “I will.”
It was as good an exit line as he’d get. He ducked under a cluster of aunts and found a place to crouch and capture the all fast-kicking, toe-tapping, heart-filling motion.